As we packed up our gear to head out of the Le Mans circuit on Sunday following Audi's awesome 1-2-3 victory at Le Mans in the wake of continued engine failures from the speed dominating Peugeots we found ourselves amidst a really interesting conversation with a person "in-the-know" with Peugeot and what he told us, if true, is quite significant.

Not surprisingly, Peugeot was not pleased with the trouncing they received at the 24 Hours of Le Mans. With such a blistering pace at their disposal, the race was seemingly their to lose. In the end, reliability reigned supreme and that strategy helped Audi win the race. Clearly three of the four Peugeots going out with similar problems the car clearly needs additional development to assure a successful continuation of the season.

According to our source, this won't happen. All resources will go toward development of the all-new 2011 Peugeot prototype that is expected to compete against the upcoming Audi R18. The 908 is "one for the museum" we were told, and that Peugeot Sport will not return to face Audi at key Intercontinental Cup races like Petit Le Mans this year. We neglected to ask about a continuation in the Le Mans Series in Europe where Peugeot is a staple and where 908s racing on Sunday directly help sell road-going Peugeots on Monday. Dropping Petit isn't all that critical on the sales side so is perhaps a more likely scenario. Granted, our source was not on the official record but his statements seem logical.

Comments

Makes perfect sense to be, they spent a TON of money only to end up failing on a grand scale. I could not blame them one bit for chucking the whole program in the trash bin and starting on the new stuff ASAP. If the R18 does the same thing to them next year I predict that Peugeot will not return to prototype racing for at least 5 years.

We got in on a Q&A with BMW about sportscar racing as well and they said they have no interest in going into prototype racing. They sited wanting to 'race what they build' as a reason to stick with GT2 and also the costs of prototype racing being 'nearly F1' but I still wish they would. Granted, they have less resources than Audi for this sort of thing but it would be cool to see these two German rivals head-to-head on that track.

By Friday, Peugeot are supposed to issue a press release explaining the engine failures. Right now, theories abound that it's piston and/or turbo related. Also, if it proves to be a big enough problem, Peugeot may go back on their intent to run the LMIC and retire the 908 as a factory car.

Then again, there's rumors that Audi may run at least one more LMS race before September, and possibly(albeit a distant one) that Audi may run an ALMS race or two(if so, I'd place my money on Road America and/or Mosport), but one of the last two LMS rounds before Silverstone is far more likely.